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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 05 October 2006 00:00 |
 Another series down, as Divergence Eve reaches the end of the line. Will Misaki find out the full truth about her origins? Will the people of Watcher's Nest survive the latest incursion by the Ghoul? Will leBlanc get his way, or will his plans end in failure? Will I stop asking daft questions? Read on...
10 - Divergence Eve
During the preparations for another mission to the Core, Watcher's Nest's defence systems begin to suffer from serious failures - even the supposed failsafe systems are failing, meaning the Quantum Barrier can't be generated. When the inevitable Ghoul is detected, Ertiana and Luxandra find themselves on the frontline. Misaki, meanwhile, is trying to avoid coming to terms with the creature within herself, while the latest Ghoul is far more powerful than any that's been encountered before now...
11 - Designer's Children
Trying to cope with Luxandra's death and her own feelings, Misaki takes some time off and heads out to the civilian area of the station. Running away? Perhaps - she certainly thinks so, but with her mind in the state it's in she's not much use to anyone anyway. She travels to the area she'd visited with Luxandra, Suzanna and Kiri, but all she finds is an abandoned ruin, thanks to the Ghoul. Meanwhile, an analysis of the last Ghoul attack shows that if they attack the station with the same level of power, the entire station would be destroyed in less than 40 minutes - and with the Quantum Barrier still down, there's no way of defending from an attack. Or is there? Misaki's attack on the Specular in the hangar shows that she may just be able to beat them back, single-handedly...
12 - MISSION 1
While Misaki's been performing exceptionally well in training, Prim's detected that she's beginning to show signs of both physical and mental fatigue - not that leBlanc much cares, he's just wanting to make sure his plans proceed. Aware of what he's up to and the risks associated with it, Prim suggests Watcher's Nest civilian population should be evacuated back to Earth - not the most practical of suggestions when we're talking millions of people. Meanwhile, another mission down to the Core brings Misaki face-to-face with another Ghoul - with unexpectedly violent results...
13 - MISSION 3
leBlanc's manipulation of the Misaki clone has proven she's capable of doing what he needs her to do, so to move to the final stage of his plan the clone is switched for the "real" Misaki. It's likely that leBlanc's plans will leave Misaki little more than a mindless marionette, but that doesn't really feature on his list of concerns. Meanwhile, plans to evacuate the station's 10 million civilians back to Earth continue apace - there's a 20% chance that the Exodus plan won't work (probably resulting in 10 million deaths), but with Ghoul incursions becoming more and more frequent, Commander Woerns doesn't feel he has much choice. Little does he know that the inflation hole created by Exodus may well provoke the largest Ghoul incursion yet...
If you're wondering what happened to MISSION 2, it's back on volume one. Divergence Eve's creators do try so hard to confuse.
Poor Misaki spends most of this volume as a shadow of her former self - between Luxandra's death and Suzanna's departure, she's having a hard time dealing with the loss of her friends, and the resulting feelings of despondency play a large part in the story here. She spends so much time wandering around in a daze that she almost becomes a bit-part, as other characters take up the slack.
After doing so well at explaining things over the past two volumes, though, this volume kinda loses the plot a bit, as things happen with no real explanation (the introduction of the Misaki "clone", for a start) that leave you wondering how much you've managed to miss. Prim does a good job of explaining the background to the original contact with the Ghoul, but even by the end of the series we're still in the dark as to exactly what they are or why leBlanc and Alchemy were so interested in making use of their DNA - the Ghoul certainly didn't appear to be intelligent enough to be worth creating a real hybrid. Go figure.
As a series of action episodes, these final episodes work quite well, with some wonderfully gory scenes to round things off. As a way of providing closure and explaining what the series has been about, they're less successful - but for all that it isn't perfect, I did still enjoy this disc. Anime has such a history of botched endings that you get a little inured to it after a while, so given how good most of the series has been I'm prepared to be forgiving - and I've seen a lot worse than this, anyway.
Good SF is hard to find, and Divergence Eve for the most part manages to provide that. There are some flaws, especially in the way the ending is presented (it could really have done with another episode or two, I think), but overall this is well worth watching.
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